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"Shape Shifting" - the piece de resistance of the hold. Liked "Figure or Ground"? You'll probably like this. You might also like it, even if you didn't. It's a complex multi-room puzzle with the added complexity of changing player roles.
If you don't play any of the other levels in this hold - play this one.

Thanks to CuriousShyRabbit, Blondbeard, Larrymurk and Talund.

Addendum: Thanks also to TFMurphy, whose rooms inspired most of the Brain puzzles. (Forgot to mention that before)

I like this hold a lot, or rather, I like these 6 mini-holds a lot. Some highlights for me:

Shapeshifting - It's great to see player role changes used as a puzzle element rather than story or decoration. I had fun figuring out which player role could solve each room, and how to get that player role to the room in the first place.

Stalwarts and Guards - This is the level where I learned the most. Each simple-looking but really rather tricky puzzle relies on a different aspect of stalwart or guard behavior. In particular, I hadn't really thought before about which way these guys rotate when they turn around.

Brains - This is the first level I tried when I started the hold, and the last level I finished. I thought it was going to be too hard for the Rabbit, but it turns out I just wasn't thinking enough. Each room has a logical solution to do with brained vs unbrained movement. Fun to figure out.

I'm not even sure I've solved two rooms yet, I know I solved one, I just find it so difficult, yet I really like it. I have a feeling that the H&S board will be full of hint requests for this hold, I'm not sure how many I'll be starting. Great job!

"Shape Shifting" - the piece de resistance of the hold. Liked "Figure or Ground"? You'll probably like this. You might also like it, even if you didn't. It's a complex multi-room puzzle with the added complexity of changing player roles.
If you don't play any of the other levels in this hold - play this one.

Yes. Play this one. This is probably the most original level that I've seen since Val Unrich, and I'm hard pressed to remember the last time I had this much fun with a hold.

Brains: This has some very neat uses of brain pathmapping, mostly turning it on and off and setting up paths to follow, with some neat constant room template variations. I'm still not sure how exactly I solved a couple of the rooms; these pathmaps can be tricky to the point of losing a little fun appeal.
Aumtlich: Very creative use of aumtlichs, with interesting combinations of elements. Nicely lynchpin-based: many of the rooms were completely opaque until I realized what needed to be done, at which point it all fell into place.
Stalwarts and Guards: I never truly appreciated just how dumb Stalwarts were until I played this level. Otherwise, see comments for Aumtlich.
Briars: Some neat maze-style rooms, but I don't feel as though this level breaks as much ground as the others. Nonetheless, fun.
Shape Shifting: See above. This level rawks! A number of rooms have multiple possible solutions, but I'd class this as added value via challenges rather than a flaw of architecture.
Grid: A very neat idea using a swordless Beethro, albeit more as a demonstation of architecture skill than as a maze per se. Be forewarned that you'll miss the satisfaction of clearing the rooms after navigating them, but it's still fun.

All in all, a very creative hold, difficult but completely fair, and essential for anyone of at least moderate skill to play.

quote:Kapoios wrote:
Several rooms have trivial solutions, though, due to a (probably) bug. For example, it is possible to conquer the hold without ever visiting Briars and Aumtlichen.

Shouldn't be. The only stairs that end the hold are in the hub level, and those are all either blocked by Force Arrows or with the Blue Gate.

The Aumtlich and Briar rooms in the hub level are Required (and thus must be completed to cause the Blue Gate to drop). And both rooms have critical features about them that prevent them from being completed without visiting the appropriate level.

Would you mind being more explicit on this possible bug? In secret tags, if you would.

The Aumtlich and Briar rooms in the hub level are Required (and thus must be completed to cause the Blue Gate to drop). And both rooms have critical features about them that prevent them from being completed without visiting the appropriate level.

Would you mind being more explicit on this possible bug? In secret tags, if you would.

Click here to view the secret text

×A wraithwing can finish those rooms in a trivial way.

You can come out of the shapeshifting return as a wraithwing. Then you can travel in some of the levels and do a few trivial solutions (eg. Briars 1N, see my demo), but most importantly the two in the hub level.

Hold of the Year and Technical Design Excellence in Concept Award Winner (2008)Advanced Concepts - I made the Goblins, Fegundos, Eyes and Potions levels
(Tutorials and Challenges involving specific DROD elements)

You can come out of the shapeshifting return as a wraithwing. Then you can travel in some of the levels and do a few trivial solutions (eg. Briars 1N, see my demo), but most importantly the two in the hub level.

Oh, I see - Jacob forgot to add a Player Role command to the Entrance of the hub room. That's too bad. In any case, well done.

Oops. Thought I'd covered that possibility. Well spotted.
I had originally thought about leaving that in as a possibility for secret hiding but it just left open the opportunity to break too many rooms.

Will anyone allow me to correct this oversight? It effectively undoes a lot of the hold.

____________________________
New to DROD? You may want to read this.
My Holds and Levels:

Hold of the Year and Technical Design Excellence in Concept Award Winner (2008)Advanced Concepts - I made the Goblins, Fegundos, Eyes and Potions levels
(Tutorials and Challenges involving specific DROD elements)

quote:Jacob wrote:
I had originally thought about leaving that in as a possibility for secret hiding but it just left open the opportunity to break too many rooms.

Heh, that's exactly what I was looking for!

Don't worry, though, those levels have some nice puzzles. No one in their right mind would outright skip them.

By the way, I must say that this hold taught me a lot about some details of the new things. I've played DROD for years, though not for a year or so and bought TCB a couple weeks ago, so most of the elements are novel. A whole new world! I still don't understand how those damn briars choose which square ripens.

All it takes to learn the new elements is playing a couple Larrymarks and Jacobs

quote:Jacob wrote:
Oops. Thought I'd covered that possibility. Well spotted.
I had originally thought about leaving that in as a possibility for secret hiding but it just left open the opportunity to break too many rooms.

Will anyone allow me to correct this oversight? It effectively undoes a lot of the hold.

quote:zex20913 wrote:So my hold just got promoted to the Holds board, and I suddenly realized that I need to change something. What do I do?

Hold admins are also in charge of approving hold updates. We try to be as reasonable as possible, but remember that by the time we see it, the hold was supposed to be finished. ... UNINTENDED SOLUTIONS ARE NOT A PLAYABILITY ISSUE. You have been warned.

Hold of the Year and Technical Design Excellence in Concept Award Winner (2008)Advanced Concepts - I made the Goblins, Fegundos, Eyes and Potions levels
(Tutorials and Challenges involving specific DROD elements)

Six levels very much unlike each other -- in some ways it's kind of like a collection of six individual holds. The puzzles on the hub level are also not trivial, though -- the post-briar puzzle had me scratching my head for quite a while. (Was that tunnel really necessary?)

Favorite sections were Shapeshifting and Brains. Least favorite...well, I have to say Grid, but only because of all the running away. I wanted to go back and do some smiting, but there's not much of an option for that. Even as my least favorite level of the hold, it was still extremely fun.

Interestingly, I found all the secret rooms I encountered fairly easy -- in many cases far easier than many of the required rooms (in some cases because you already knew how to solve the required rooms). Fun, though.

This is a great hold and challenging enough to keep even an experienced Smiter busy for a while.

9 for fun and 7.5 brains.

Josh

____________________________
"Rings and knots of joy and grief, all interlaced and locking." --William Buck

While I'm all in favor of administratively removing clearly bogus votes, I'd note that the *real* answer is to convince more people to play and rate these holds. A single obnoxious '1' vote makes a big difference when there are only five legitimate votes. It makes a much smaller difference when there are twenty.

Josh

____________________________
"Rings and knots of joy and grief, all interlaced and locking." --William Buck

Hold of the Year and Technical Design Excellence in Concept Award Winner (2008)Advanced Concepts - I made the Goblins, Fegundos, Eyes and Potions levels
(Tutorials and Challenges involving specific DROD elements)